Architectural Skin Design
Like the skin of animals and people, architectural envelopes represent an essential element to create contained and protected spaces that respond to specific functional requirements.
The envelope of a building works as a transition between inside and outside, plays an essential role in the performance of a building. First of all it provides protection but also its aesthetic and cultural function are very important aspects that determine the success of a building.
Our industry is in continuous evolution, driven by technological innovation, social changes, economic factors and the design strategies are constantly evolving to meet requirements determined by society and environment. Current facade design is affected by new technologies in the field of construction, for example Artificial Intelligence, Digital Fabrication, represent new opportunities that can deeply change the way we build, reducing costs and increasing safety. This innovation is also supported by new design technologies, based on Digital Twins and Algorithmic Design, that play an essential role in the evolution of facade design.
Large quantities of data can be managed and used for project coordination. Algorithmic design allows to manage complex design ideas and solve multi-objective design issues taking in account information relative to multiple stakeholders, planning regulation, environmental conditions, and user behaviour. This technology opens the possibility to improve design quality by accessing and considering different type of project information from early stage of design. Another essential aspect of facade design is sustainability. The fundamental aim of a building is to protect people from external climate conditions. Building Skin is the primary subsystem through which external conditions can be influenced and regulated to meet comfort requirements of a user inside the building. The main challenge is to respond to multiple functional performances, shading vs artificial lighting, views vs privacy, solar gains vs overheating.
Contemporary performance requirements for facades, brought to the development of Adaptive Facade Systems These systems can contribute to energy savings by adapting its components to boundary conditions in order to create active or passive reactions. Adaptability can be interpreted as the potential of the system to deliver multi-objective comfort criteria under uncertain environmental conditions by changing its physical characteristics within a short time frame. We can identify some main typologies used in contemporary skin design, from kinetic facades that use mechanical transformation to respond to changes in the environment, to biomimetic facade that implement behaviour observed in natural systems like the Hygroskin Pavilion that change its configuration thanks to changes in humidity levels, to interactive facades that integrate advanced sensors and microcontrollers to interact with the use, just to mention some of them.
In our projects at SASI Studio, we are interested in investigating architectural skins as opportunities to create new living experiences where people are connected with the natural environment and the design strategy takes advantage of contemporary technologies to facilitate construction and help clients in achieving a good balance between design innovation and budget.
The Vaults Tower represents a concept design proposal that investigates the use of volumetric facade elements that integrate structure and thermal mass using inverted vaults that generate an articulated balcony system offering to the user open spaces that can host vegetation along the entire height of the tower creating a vertical forest effect. Each vault encloses a certain volume that becomes a thermal mass that contributes to the temperature control of the building and creates wide open space for the user. In the middle of the tower we designed a double high amenity level that offers multifunctional spaces for the inhabitants of the building. The entire system is made of
repeated components that create an articulated facade, in which each user has its own intimate space. The vaults are designed as single curvature surfaces that can be fabricated off-site and then assembled on site. This facade articulation reflects in the interior typologies that are repeated every two floors optimizing the distribution of the interior layouts.
Our proposal for The Gwangju City Main Library is an interesting example of facade design, the projects consist of two parts the renovation of existing industrial buildings and the creation of new volumes for the library. The facades becomes the trait d ‘union of the entire volumetric distribution. Multiple buildings become part of the overall system thanks to the facade that connects the different volumes through a system of bridges. The entire facade is designed using algorithms to determine the exposure of the facade to solar radiation creating a louver system that follows the facade design offering passive shading that protects from excessive solar radiation. Each volume is carved to create internal courtyard that brings light inside the space and offers enclosed communal gardens. These gardens are used to collect and recycle rain water and generate wind flow creating a chimney effect. The idea in the project was to maximise the reuse of natural resources, through a skin design capable to regulate natural ventilation, creating a natural allocation of solar panels and offering green terraces.
Recently we developed a new proposal for a tower in London. The idea is to create a mixed use tower, in which residential functions coexist with co-working spaces, private gym and a rooftop bar. The basement is characterized by entrance lobbies and retail to create a 24hr activation around the site. The facade plays an essential role in the overall design of the building creating openings and terraces that dematerialize the building corners. The skin design is based on modular cladding elements in aluminium that articulate the facade and optimise construction costs. The overall design is optimized using few complex nodes that are repeated along the facade. In our design approach we design facades as 3d systems that respond to multi-functional requirements, and take in account construction strategies from early stages of design.
We believe in innovation and we invest in research and academic collaborations. We are interested in digital fabrication as opportunity for the construction industry, that can be used to increase the quality of design without proportionally increasing costs, thanks to computer numerical control machines and robotics that allow to create complex geometries and use innovative materials to enable design solution previously expensive and difficult to implement. These machines allow to translate information contained in the digital twins in the physical environment creating a bridge between digital world and physical world. This opens up to a new opportunities in facade design and in general in the construction industry. We believe that Architectural Skins will be a major player in the cities of the future, the idea of architecture space will extend beyond the limit of the envelope of each individual building to create multi-functional spaces that can be shared by the community and respond to multiple functional requirements and user scenario. The idea of inhabitable space goes beyond the idea of high performance envelopes they can become more metaphysical user interfaces that will interact with the users, offering new dynamic spaces similarly to how we interact with our smartphones, establishing a new level of interaction with the users.